Anybody know when this game is actually going to start? Don't wanna be up til 2 AM for the second time in the last 4 nights... The Hawaii game was supposed to "start" at 11:30. Well it really didn't til about 11:45. Don't want this one to "start" at 11 PM, but tip off at 11:20. Ah well. Coffee, coffee, coffee.

Those jumpsuits have got to be the dumbest line nike has even produced. The nike swoosh and the circle I are literally the same color blue as the actual suit. There's a bunch of other nike apparel out this year for us and other schools that's the same type of thing. Who at nike thought it would be a good idea to make it so you can't even see the logo?!

"We're going to learn a lot in the next three days," Groce said. "We're looking forward to that. This really gives us an opportunity to earmark our team and see where we are early in this season.

"The Hawaii game shows our guys that you have to play 40 minutes, and I thought we showed great resolve. You have to deal with both adversity and success. The fact that we got down a couple of times and came back, we really hung in there."

Nobody really knows what the future holds for John Groce's first Illinois team. But the Illini will start learning more when they take on USC, coached by former Northwestern coach Kevin O'Neill, in the Maui Invitational on Monday (11:00pm CT, ESPN2).

"Our system is relatively new to these guys," Groce said Sunday. "We're an older team, so that allows them to pick up things more quickly. At the same time, everything's new. When you play in a tournament like this, you can get exposed in certain areas where your system is not rock-solid yet. That's going to be good for our team moving forward."